Consider this anecdote about a coin. As an experiment, give the coin to a group of people and say, “Here, this coin is for you.” Then give it to a second group of people and say, “Here, this small coin is for you.” Then ask your participants how happy they feel about this gift. The result: the people to whom you gave the “small” coin generally say they feel less happy than the others – even though the value of the coin is exactly the same in both cases. In other words, adding the word “small” to describe the coin produced less satisfaction! This is a very easy way to show that “the words we use draw attention to things which are not necessarily relevant. […] Language influences the way we see the world as well as how we think and behave,” explains Pascal Gygax in Le cerveau pense-t-il au masculin?1 (Does the brain think in the masculine?), which he co-authored.
“Language influences the way we see the world.”
The book explores this theme well beyond the scope of monetary gifts. Born in Biel (canton Berne), Pascal Gygax is passionate about the influence that gendered use of vocabulary has on our perception of society and its codes. He analyses how the French language – and others – through its obvious masculinisation, contributes to entrenching mechanisms which allow men to dominate the world, women included. Fancy an example? When we read the phrase “Doctors ask students to wash their hands”, we immediately think of men in white coats demanding a gesture of hygiene from their male audience, as in French, “doctors” and “students” are both written in the grammatical masculine form. The interesting thing is that the wording (i.e., masculine grammatical form in French) would be the same even if the group of doctors in question included one or several women, and there was a single male student in an otherwise homogeneous group of female students. According to Pascal Gygax, this interpretation of the masculine grammatical form, said to be “generic”, to refer to all gender identities can be explained by the way our brain works, as several neuroscience studies have shown.2 And this brain formatting goes all the way back to the very first years of each person’s life. The work which Pascal Gygax initiated some twenty years ago has made the 49-year-old a leading researcher in his field, earning him in 2024 the Marcel Benoist Swiss Science Prize, often considered the Swiss equivalent of the Nobel Prize. A far cry from the Grand Slam titles and tennis career he once dreamt of as a boy!
“At university, I hesitated between studying maths and psychology. I was told that if I did maths, it would be easier to find work than if I did psychology.” So he studied maths – until a special experience changed everything: “One day, returning from a tournament with the Swiss wheelchair tennis team, which I used to coach, one of the team members confided that he would rather have died than live with his disability.” Moved by this story, Pascal Gygax decided to transfer to psychology. “Being an idealist, I wanted to save the world, save people’s souls,” he recalls. However, the first disillusionment followed on the heels: “I was talking to Paul Gilbert, a British clinician, who told me that if a person were to ask him for help because they were deliberately hitting their head against a wall, all he could do in terms of psychology would be… to give them a helmet. That convinced me once and for all that I wasn’t cut out for clinical psychology.” So he headed for England to study psychology and psycholinguistics, before returning to the University of Fribourg in 2003 to do research in this field.
Specialists in emotions
His early work focused on how we perceive emotions, with results which indicate that “people don’t recall the emotions associated with past events very precisely because that would be asking too much of their brains in terms of mental resources”. That was followed, in 2012, by a pioneering study3 into the limited impact on young adults of warnings printed on cigarette packets presenting images of organs ravaged by smoke combined with simple slogans such as “Smoking kills!” This work focused on inferences, i.e. how we analyse information drawn from texts or images without that information being explicitly presented in writing – in other words, how we read and understand “between the lines”. “These warnings have no effect on young adults,” explains Pascal Gygax. “Firstly, because they think they are immortal. And secondly, because they are convinced they can stop smoking at any time, and are imbued with false beliefs – that passive smoking is more harmful than smoke which is inhaled directly, for example.” Pascal Gygax then went on to study how we perceive the future4: “In the German language, the present tense is often used to express the future – ‘Tomorrow, I come to see you.’ An American researcher hypothesised that this use of the present tense explained why people in Germany were more inclined to save money. Why? Because talking about the future in the present tense brings the future closer, and retirement in particular. We tested that idea experimentally.”
“Our brain finds it difficult to match the second part with the first, because the word ‘woman’ is not immediately associated with ‘musicians’.”
But it is the impact of ultra-masculinised language on our perception of the world, and consequently on gender inequalities, which has occupied most of the past two decades of his research. He goes on to detail some of the key findings, published in 20085 and reproduced several times since, which have made him a household name: “The studies all show that when we see a masculine term, even if it can theoretically be understood as ‘generic’ – in other words, it describes a group in which there may be women as well, as in the example above with the doctors – we more easily think of men, i.e. in the ‘specific’ sense of the word (masculine=man).” The following double sentence is another example of this difference: “The musicians [in the masculine form in French] left the cafeteria. Because of the storm, a woman carried an umbrella with her.” According to Pascal Gygax, “our brain finds it difficult to match the second part with the first, because the word ‘woman’ is not immediately associated with ‘musicians’, expressed here in the masculine grammatical form, even if this form can be theoretically understood as a generic form.” The reason? “Our brain is somehow preformatted to imagine ‘men’ when we read ‘musicians’ in the masculine grammatical form because that’s how the brain uses a minimum of energy to make comprehension decisions very quickly, in just a few tenths of a second.” As certain recent studies measuring the brain’s electrical activity have shown, the brain consumes more energy when it tries to include a “woman” in “musicians” in the masculine grammatical form.
The string of light bulbs metaphor
Pascal Gygax likes to explain these concepts using the metaphor of a circuit of light bulbs to represent neurons. The “specific masculine” circuit stays slightly switched on all the time, so it is quickly fully activated even when a “generic masculine” term is intended. Conversely, switching on a string of lights when a feminine element is identified within a “generic masculine” word is much more demanding because one has to start by switching off the first circuit. In the end, he says, the idea that the masculine form can be used to represent a neutral value is incompatible with the way our brain works. Pascal Gygax helped to demonstrate that this pattern of brain activation becomes established in very early childhood, between the ages of 3 and 5, and is subsequently reinforced during the first years at school: “Formally, we teach the rule ‘masculine=man’ long before we explain that the masculine can also be used in the generic sense,” he says.
This is compounded by other expressions which reinforce the pre-eminence of the masculine over the feminine. Firstly, the order of citation, which very often sees the man mentioned first, as in the expression “husband and wife”, or “Adam and Eve” – with the notable exception of “Ladies and Gentlemen”, a remnant of benevolent gallantry which, according to Pascal Gygax, reflects a certain gentle mockery rather than the politeness which the expression is intended to convey. Or the generic agreement in the French language, whereby a group of nouns of several genders takes the masculine form: “les étudiantes et étudiants sont formés à la médecine” (female students and male students are trained in medicine). In all these examples, we see the driving force behind Pascal Gygax’s work: “This androcentric language, which places men at the centre or above everything else, totally shapes the way we see society.” With multiple consequences.
“This androcentric language, which places men at the centre or above everything else, totally shapes the way we see society.”
Firstly, it plays a role in rendering an entire section of society invisible, not only women, but anyone who does not identify with the word “man”. Secondly, and more importantly, androcentric language has a major impact on how children imagine their future career options, explains Pascal Gygax. This is compounded by another very powerful issue: gender stereotypes. Certain professions are spontaneously associated more with women or more with men. Like nurses (women) and surgeons (men). Reading “female surgeons” gives the brain a jolt, at the cost of extra activity, because our mental representation of this profession tends to be masculine. “Young people’s perceptions of certain professions are distorted by these gender stereotypes and by the masculine grammatical form,” insists Pascal Gygax in his book. Before going on to explain that things were not always this way.
An idea cannot exist without words to describe it
Over the course of its history, the French language, once equitable, has undergone several waves of masculinisation. Until the 17th century, there was a rule stipulating that an adjective should agree with the nearest noun, as in “ce vase et cette tasse sont cassées” (this vase and that cup are broken). While this form of agreement is not formally wrong today, it is rare. It was also around this time that “more and more women were starting to break out of their gendered roles, which bothered certain grammarians and writers. That is why the Académie française decided to remove the feminine form of the noun for certain job titles such as “autrice, médecine, mairesse, philosophesse, poétesse” (author, doctor, mayor, philosopher and poet) from its first editions of the dictionary,” says Pascal Gygax.6 He insists that the disappearance of feminine word forms, such as “autrice” (author) was no accident. It was to let women know that these professions were not for them. On the other hand, the feminine form of “baker” (boulangère) never disappeared, because this was considered a less prestigious profession. Pascal Gygax also explains this phenomenon of excluding certain words with reference to George Orwell’s 1984: “In Newspeak, the language created by Orwell for the society he describes, the word ‘freedom’ is banned so that the population cannot even think about it… In other words, Orwell anchors the concept that an idea cannot exist without the words required to describe it.”
Bolstered by these historical and sociological observations, the psycholinguist continued to expand his field of research by examining other languages, working with scientists in numerous countries and testing other more or less gendered linguistic models. Observing our 21st century communities to be still very patriarchal, Pascal Gygax finally concludes: “We need to demasculinise society!” One of the tools he encourages people to use is inclusive language, currently the focus of some very heated debate.
The scientist starts by explaining the origins of the term: “It first appeared in North American Protestant theology in the late 1970s. The idea was to show that the Bible is for everyone, not just men.” It was suggested that certain biblical metaphors should be demasculinised, that Jesus should be referred to as “the child of God”, not as “the son of God”, and that even God’s gender should be questioned, because it did not necessarily have to be male. “Today, inclusive language is all about achieving a better balance between the representation of genders in language,” sums up Pascal Gygax. “And it goes well beyond the numerous contracted forms of spelling which create so much buzz and to which it is too often reduced.” These minority forms – not yet well established – include the hyphen (les étudiant-e-s) and the contested interpoint, as in “les étudiant·e·s” (to contract “les étudiantes et étudiants”) or “les agriculteur·rice·s” (instead of “les agriculteurs et agricultrices”). And finally, spelling which includes non-binary persons: “les citoyen·ne·x·s”.
According to Pascal Gygax, the lack of knowledge on inclusive language as a scientific discipline goes a long way to explaining much of the animosity towards it. “Often, when you explain that a sentence using what is known as a doublet, such as ‘les chanteuses et chanteurs sont excellents’ (the female chorists and the male chorists are excellent) is also inclusive language, people are surprised, because this way of writing is increasingly common and is not necessarily contested.” However, the rejection of these forms, sometimes considered difficult to read, may be underpinned by deeper reasons: “Firstly, there is reticence due to a certain, sometimes visceral, conservatism. A type of conservatism that can lead to an assumption that the number of women in leadership positions is greater than it actually is, to the point of wanting to reduce that number… For those who subscribe to traditional values, there is also the ‘just world’ argument: basically, everything is fine the way it is, and inequality is not a problem. Lastly, sexism and transphobia may also help to explain why inclusive language is not well accepted.”
“I was called an ultra-wokist and accused of using Taliban methods.”
In this heated debate, Pascal Gygax does not hesitate to play a popularising role, always with the intention of making his field of study accessible. He has created educational videos with the help of the EPFL7, taken part in round-table discussions and radio and television shows, and written articles for the media such as his “Letter [of apology] to a child about to be born in Switzerland” in 2020.8 So much so that he has gained a reputation which precedes him as a champion of inclusive language, having been called “an ultra-wokist and accused of using Taliban methods.” “I was invited to speak about inclusive language to the municipal council of a commune in the canton of Vaud, but just as I was about to take to the podium, a group of elected representatives, mainly right-wing, got up and left the room. One of them told me he had nothing against me, but that he already knew everything about the issue…” While the controversy has already taken on political overtones – “and language has always been political, because it’s an object of prestige that the elites defend to the hilt,” says Pascal Gygax – it is obviously now also seeping into the field of school education: “I was supposed to talk at a school, but the school head received a letter from a parent expressing concern that students were about to be given a lecture pleading the cause of ‘gender theory’. In the end, my talk was cancelled even though it was entirely factual and mainly focussed on gender stereotypes and the career aspirations of young adults.”
Inclusive language: the gateway to greater equality
Pascal Gygax admits that his commitment to achieving a more gender-equal society is a full-time occupation. “My teenage daughter sometimes asks me if we can go a whole Sunday at home without mentioning it in any way,” he laughs. But the researcher denies falling into idealism, let alone utopianism, or that the battle is futile: “It’s true that inclusive forms will not, as some have criticised, ‘make the streets safer’, and that replacing the word ‘author’ with ‘authoress’ when referring to a woman won’t restrain the arm of a violent husband, in the same way that condemning racist remarks won’t stop certain people from throwing bananas onto football pitches. But if inclusive language can help to encourage girls’ confidence and perception of success in certain professional activities where equality is not respected, we believe it deserves our wholehearted support,” writes the researcher.9 He also emphasises that his work is always based on the principles of good research, “we carry out standardised studies and we work with solid data so that we can deliver well-researched information about the consequences of the masculinisation of language. Results which we give back to society in the form of knowledge in recognition of the financial support we receive.” A discreet allusion to point out that this kind of empirical work has not always enjoyed full support. And, he says, funding sometimes also tends to support results which are “written in advance” rather than laboratory protocols which evolve as research progresses. Speaking as the long-distance hiker he has become in his spare time – although he remains “a softie all the same” – Pascal Gygax looks forward to using the sum that goes with the Marcel Benoist Swiss Science Prize to finally create the academic institute dedicated to this research that he has dreamt of for years. “With the same working and training atmosphere that I experienced in England as a doctoral student – benevolent and less academically hierarchical than in Switzerland.”
Because society is not standing still. On the contrary, recent debates focusing on non-binary gender inspire him to imagine how things might develop: “Words like ‘lecteurice’ (a masculine and feminine fusion word) are beginning to appear to include non-binary people,” he says, referring to the now viral podcast “Les Couilles sur la table” by journalist Victoire Tuaillon, which starts each time with “Cher·es auditeurices” (Dear listeners [masculine and feminine fusion word]). “For us scientists, these words become fascinating objects of study.” He goes into raptures and does not hesitate to criticise the “immortals” in the Académie française who, in 2017, called inclusive language a “mortal danger for our language”10: “Far from being set in stone, the French language, as other languages, needs to breathe. It is evolving. It is alive.” The researcher is convinced: “Talking and writing about it [the plurality, and even non-binary gender] is to bring it into existence, to make it visible.” At the very least. “Then it’s up to society as a whole, up to people, to get to grips with this issue.” So that society can also evolve.
1 «Le cerveau pense-t-il au masculin?», P. Gygax, U. Gabriel, S. Zufferey, Editions Le Robert (2021)
3 Bosson, M., Maggiori, C., Gygax, P., & Gay, C. (2012). Smoking and adolescence: Exploring tobacco consumption and related attitudes in three different age groups in Switzerland. Journal of Youth Studies, 15, 225-240.
4 Jäggi, T., Sato, S., Gillioz, C., & Gygax, P. M. (2022). Is the future near or far depending on the verb tense markers used? An experimental investigation into the effects of the grammaticalization of the future. PLOS ONE, 17, e0262778.
5 Gygax, P., Ute, G., Sarrasin, O., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., Generically intended, but specifically interpreted: When beauticians, musicians, and mechanics are all men, Language and Cognitive Processes, vol. 23, 2003.
6 Genre, les mots pour le dire, S. Woeldgen, in Heidi.news, 08.12.2021
7 Watch it here: www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/outils/capsules
8 «Lettre à un enfant qui va naître en Suisse», P. Gygax et P. Wagner-Egger, Le Temps, 09.09.2020
9 «Elevons le débat sur le langage inclusif!», P. Gygax, P. Wagner-Egger, in Le Temps, 18.06.2019
10 Déclaration de l’Académie français sur l’écriture dite «inclusive», at www.academie-française.fr, 26 October 2017.